Do tougher measures on illegal immigration really work? You better believe it! At least in Prince William County Virginia. After a marathon meeting of the county board, which resulted in an eight-to-nothing vote recommending severe restrictions on services available to illegal immigrants, illegal Latinos began moving out of the county in droves. The Washington Post reported in yesterday’s editions [October 21] that “one-way rentals on U-Haul trucks have jumped from 10 a month in July to about 40 a month today.”

The new rules empower police to ask residents if they are legal U.S. residents and, if they are not, to arrest them and turn them over to federal immigration authorities for deportation. The county board also voted to create a new police unit to deal exclusively with the crisis of illegal aliens in Prince William County. The county is a suburban enclave of Washington, D.C., an area with a high percentage of illegals from Mexico, El Salvador, and Guatemala.

With the influx of illegal immigrants to the area have come corresponding incidents by Latino street gangs and a serious drain on area resources. Prince William County is a microcosm of what is happening in other cities, especially New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. In Los Angeles, according to The National Review, 95 percent of the outstanding murder warrants are for illegal aliens. One Los Angeles street gang, “18^th Street,” has more than one gang member for each of the 17,000 Los Angeles police officers.

Even the “benign” illegal immigrants are having a toxic effect on many of the communities where they settle. A study by The Heritage Foundation (”The Cost of Illegal Immigration”) says the illegals do more than depress wages and reduce the number of jobs available to legal workers. In many communities, illegal immigrants are entitled to attend area schools, and receive treatment in hospital emergency rooms (more than $1 billion a year in California is spent on health care for illegals). Even if the illegal immigrants are paying taxes, they fall far short of paying a fraction of the cost of providing the services they use.

The debates in Prince William County, Virginia also brought out the fact that the native population of the U.S. is aging and retiring at a rate never before seen. Millions of illegal immigrants (the number varies from eight to 12 million according to The Wall Street Journal) “can seriously influence the economic dependency ratio of productive workers to retirees if they are able to access the social services of the U.S.” This, according to a recent study by researchers at North Carolina Wesleyan College. In addition, the scholars note, “There is the problem of an informal, underground economy. It is closely connected to such things as our inflation rate, fiscal and monetary controls, our standard of living index, and our quality of life.”

The college study points out that while Texas has the largest population of settled illegal immigrants, it has not been the place for new illegal entries in recent years due to Border Patrol activities. Which is another way of saying that where anti-illegal immigration measures are enforced, fear of arrest and deportation for actionable crimes makes other venues more attractive. And in the case of Prince William County, the illegals are not merely moving to the neighboring state. Many are returning to their country of origin. The Washington Post cited a day laborer who entered the U.S. illegally 18 months ago, settled in Prince William County, Virginia, and has suddenly booked a flight back to his home in El Salvador. An English language “academy” in the county boasted 350 students in July. That number has since dropped to 60.

Chronicles magazine notes that the Census Bureau predicts that at current immigration levels, there will be a 56 percent increase in the U.S. population by 2060. New immigrants and their descendants will account for 63 percent of that increase. In addition to the influx of millions from Mexico and South America, immigrants from the Middle East alone will increase by 2.5 million. Then there is the additional inflow from the Indian subcontinent - India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.To those who say open the borders, we’ll find room, they may be quite correct. Regardless of your position on immigration limits, it may in fact be far too late to stop the free ride. There are vast areas of the U.S. that are currently unpopulated or underpopulated that could become the new domiciles of the waves of legal and illegal immigrants yet to come, say the open gaters. The recent laws passed by Prince William County, Virginia are predicted to be short-lived, either to be struck down as unconstitutional, or simply unenforceable.Mark Raab, a professor at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, has already thrown in the towel: “We should remember that America has proven to be a resilient society, despite periodic immigration controversies. The latest wave of immigration seems as likely to assimilate to American ways as those of the past. And, if the past is a guide, we can probably count on the descendants of today’s newcomers to launch their own immigration debates.” [Kansas City Star, October 19, 2007]

What all of this portends is neatly summed up in the Chronicles article noted above: “Far from enhancing America’s diversity, the coming deluge threatens to impose a numbing Third World sameness, to eradicate the remnants of this country’s identify, and to demolish what survives of her special character.”